Shak attack
The Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has been distinguishing himself recently at both classical and speed chess time limits. Last month…
no. 521
White to play. This is from Mamedyarov–Georgiadis, Biel 2018. Many of Mamedyarov’s games feature a kingside attack based upon a…
Pundemic
In Competition No. 3063 you were invited to submit a poem about puns containing puns. Dryden regarded paronomasia as…
2374: Watch your step
The unclued lights (three of two words) are of a kind. Across 1 Slices top of sausage in…
to 2371: In a paddy
The unclued lights and those clued without thematic definition (2, 11, 26, 33 and 42) are Irish forenames. Nuala Considine’s…
Why is a BBC executive calling for the removal of middle-aged white men from television?
Cassian Harrison, the editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that no one wants to…
Watch out comrade: big business is turning communist
Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2)…
Dear Mary: How can I weed out the party ‘flakes’?
Q. I invited four younger colleagues, all in their mid to late thirties, to go for a meal at a…
The great Seven Stars – but not, alas, its furry bar staff – is immune to change
Roy Hattersley once wrote a plangent passage about a painful aspect of the human condition: the short span of animals’…
1880s slang: How to fig a nag and pitch a snide
‘I want my money back,’ said my husband. ‘This is from the 1880s, not the 1980s.’ He looked up from…
Dumping Turnbull
At a funeral, there are those who are in mourning and those who are merely paying their respects. For the…
Honouring Abbott
If Malcolm Turnbull’s mainstream and social media defenders have their way, the parliamentary Liberal party’s mayhem last week will be…
Brown Study
The most bizarre feature of the Liberal party’s leadership coup is that the party has not given any explanation as…
Simon Collins
From a One Nation kind of perspective, one of the most inconvenient truths about the Muslim population of modern Australia…
Latham’s Law
When Matt Damon starred in the movie Downsizing earlier this year, he could not have known he was providing a…
It’s Paris, stupid
A year ago I urged the Liberal National Party to lance the pustule of Paris, proposing at the Queensland LNP…
Australian notes
In the hour and a half it took me to drive to Sydney on August 23, I listened to what…
Liberal notes
At the very moment the federal Liberal party was having another debate over leadership I happened to be launching a…
Turnbull’s ‘progressive’ legacy
In August 2011 the Australian American Leadership Dialogue talkfest convened in Perth and one of its sessions was a panel…
Richard Tognetti
![Richard Tognetti [Photo: Zan Wimberley]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Culture_Buff.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Going from strength to strength, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s recently announced 2019 Season shows no flagging of inspiration or ambition.…
Del-Con Notes
I am outraged to learn you’ve cheated on me, absolutely outraged’, says the husband to his wife. Only the man…
Thanks for nothing, Malcolm
One thing we can be sure of is that the Liberal prime minister who once tried to join the Labor…
Their ABC: a conservative – and male – free zone
When I was growing up, a popular folk song written and recorded by Pete Seeger lamented “Where have all the…
The Age collapses – in more ways than one
It’s often been said that the Melbourne Age’s world ends with the tramlines. Beyond is “Here be monsters” territory. As…
